Re: Quick Review: Cyberwar as a Confidence Game by Martin C. Libicki

[jf <jf () ownco net>]

> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 3:43 AM, Val Smith <valsmith () attackresearch com> wrote:
> > There is a fundamental problem with this discussion. Those who actually
> > work in the field of cyber-war (if it exists ;) can't comment, or can
> > only comment in a vague way or one which disinforms. At least in this
> > country and probably the others.

I don't think people truly appreciate just how true this paragraph is, and how much our views get distorted as a 
result. It appears true even in the authors paper, note how in his examples he completely omits referencing things like 
titan rain and moonlight maze et al as background history; which makes me wonder if a classified version of this paper 
exists and what it says if it does. 


> This may be true. I gave a talk based on my experiences on
> cyberdefense exercises and it is quite difficult to speak meaningfully
> in the open public.

I can't speak for Greece's policies, but from the personal experience of a security investigation due to this email ( 
http://gr.linkedin.com/in/yiorgos ), an fbi investigation from that employer getting owned, an fbi visit when I tried 
to do a public talk (25c3, apparently we do have something to hide), and so on, I can say semi-authoritively they don't 
like you talking about this sort of stuff. 

Although in all fairness, this appears to be changing, I'm continually blown away by statements I read from DoD et al 
that say things I'm pretty sure would end up with the fbi at my door again. I'm hoping this means citizens of lower 
stature can start being a little more loose lipped.
 
> With the paper at hand I think there is a terminology problem. The
> same word means different things to different people and it is my
> understanding that Libicki uses more narrow (strict) definitions for
> cyberwar than most would expect. 

I think to some degree you're correct; my guess is that he's using the "strictly with computers through the internet" 
type of definition, instead of a "everything that is electronic" definition. This would explain his strange list of 
historical examples. 

> However in the case of this paper, I
> too am guilty of reading it diagonally and although I like reading him
> and generally agree with his views, his last paragraph does not
> connect well with my mindset.

After my original post, I read more of the paper and it appears that he is basically just saying that cyber-warfare is 
at best a second-tier strategic weapon. I still disagree with him on many points, id est his list of pre-reqs for cyber 
attack, the requirements that a target be unprepared and unlucky, that the measure/counter-measure game leads to a 
permanently lower plateau of efficacy for the attacker, et cetera. I'm becoming a little self-conscious at my ability 
to spam long emails to public lists, so I'm not going to expand on the thoughts any, just note that I disagree.

Basically, I agree that it's a second/third-tier weapon, however I think a lot of the reasoning given is faulty and 
takes a lot of logical jumps to draw conclusions which in turn become suspect. For instance, he seems to think that the 
second I break into your computers, you become aware of it and thus my second wave will be less successful. Whereas the 
reality is that the US govt has spent tons of money building SoCs that have never identified an incident, where even if 
they did it's unlikely they would be able to accurately identify the hole that allowed the intrusion in the first 
place, and once thats all done, the attacker is actually on like round 30, not round 2-- assuming they didn't get what 
they wanted in round 1 and needed/wanted to continue the attack.


> (Should not one invite Libicki in the discussion? It would help the
> discussion and could lead to a better understanding of what he wrote
> and what we understood).

CC'd; I'd be curious about a discussion, but my hopes are not high.

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